Catherine Mulligan
Catherine Mulligan is a painter born in Nutley, New Jersey and based in Brooklyn, New York.
Mulligan's work is based on figurative representations of a decline in consumer culture.Treating the surfaces of her oil paintings with an artificial patina, as if the paintings themselves were resisting the hostile conditions of her imaginary hellish landscapes. Most of them have jaundiced complexions, distended bellies, leathery, elastic skin, and visible ribs. Her paintings seem calcified, hardened by their encounter with the implicit lens of the camera. On the other side of the lens, the abject women maintain direct eye contact, neutralizing any attempt at voyeurism with their glassy, distant gazes. Their postures are often artificial, uncomfortable, and insincere.
Mulligan has exhibited internationally, showing at Kunst im Tunnel (Dusseldorf) Hans Gallery (Chicago), Envy6011 (New Zealand), Tara Downs, Harkawik, Queer Thoughts, Clearing (NYC), and M+B (LA), along with participating in the Bonner Kunstverein Jahresgaben in 2021. She is the recipient of two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants and has been written about in Two Coats of Paint, Interview Magazine, ArtForum and the Art in America newsletter, among others. Mulligan earned her BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (2009) and University of Pennsylvania (2010) and holds an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington (2019).
︎︎︎CV ︎@catherine.mulligan
Mulligan's work is based on figurative representations of a decline in consumer culture.Treating the surfaces of her oil paintings with an artificial patina, as if the paintings themselves were resisting the hostile conditions of her imaginary hellish landscapes. Most of them have jaundiced complexions, distended bellies, leathery, elastic skin, and visible ribs. Her paintings seem calcified, hardened by their encounter with the implicit lens of the camera. On the other side of the lens, the abject women maintain direct eye contact, neutralizing any attempt at voyeurism with their glassy, distant gazes. Their postures are often artificial, uncomfortable, and insincere.
Mulligan has exhibited internationally, showing at Kunst im Tunnel (Dusseldorf) Hans Gallery (Chicago), Envy6011 (New Zealand), Tara Downs, Harkawik, Queer Thoughts, Clearing (NYC), and M+B (LA), along with participating in the Bonner Kunstverein Jahresgaben in 2021. She is the recipient of two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants and has been written about in Two Coats of Paint, Interview Magazine, ArtForum and the Art in America newsletter, among others. Mulligan earned her BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (2009) and University of Pennsylvania (2010) and holds an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington (2019).
︎︎︎CV ︎@catherine.mulligan